Podtalk: Director Eugene Jarecki Crowns Elvis ‘The King’

CHICAGO – Elvis Presley, besides being one of the most famous entertainers of the 20th Century, does symbolize to an extent what can happen to icons when they turn towards certain directions in a career. Director Eugene Jarecki has created an amazing documentary about Elvis called “The King,” that uses his rise and decline as a symbol for the American Dream.

Elvis Presley is Everywhere in ‘The King’
Photo credit: Oscilloscope

The film is part bio picture, part fan film and all about America. Jarecki borrowed Elvis’s actual Rolls Royce and put celeb admirers like Alec Baldwin, Ethan Hawke, Ashton Kutcher, Emily Lou Harris and John Hiatt inside the car to talk about the significance of the Elvis celebrity, bigger and brighter at its time than any other. The film is simply a truth about who and what America is, through one of the biggest personalities it ever produced, for better or worse.

Eugene Jarecki has created a number of thought-provoking and provocative documentaries including “The Trials of Henry Kissinger’ (2002), “Why We Fight” (2005), “Reagan” (2011) and the short doc “The House I Live In” (2012), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

In the following podtalk with Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com, Eugene Jarecki pontificates on the extraordinary journey of making “The King,” and whether Elvis is truly everywhere.

[21]	By PATRICK McDONALD [22] Editor and Film Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com [21]